Jaw-Dropping Generosity

What would you do if you had a net worth of $5 billion?

This past weekend, billionaire Robert F. Smith gave about $10 million of his money away. Just like that. No strings attached.

He surprised the graduating class of Morehouse College in Georgia by paying off all of their student loans.

Watch the faces of the faculty behind him, who had no idea of his plan…

“As hard as each of you has worked to achieve what you all have achieved today, you’ve had a lot of help along the way....pay this forward.”

— Robert F. Smith

He has given freedom to those young graduates, but more importantly, he spoke of living a life of giving.

We can handle this news two ways. The wrong way, and the right way.

Don’t go the wrong way:

• Don’t let yourself feel jealous.

• Don’t fall into a ‘poor me’ mindset.

• Don’t complain that you never get any good breaks.

• Don’t whine that if only you had $5 billion, you’d be generous, too.

All of us, every day, must live with generosity and compassion.

How?

1. Give away 10% of each paycheck. Yikes! Really??? Yes. Find your favorite charity or church and make this automatic. Or start at 5% or even 1%, getting in the habit of sharing your hard-earned cash.

2. Give your time. Read a storybook with a toddler. Call your mother. Volunteer at the little league snack bar. Mentor a new coworker.

3. Use your talents. Can you organize? Write? Cook? Counsel? Drive? Sing?

4. Smile and look around you. Open the door for someone with their arms full. Share a snack with a coworker who forgot their lunch. Chat with someone who seems lonely.

Your one act of generosity and compassion toward an individual could reach and touch others who you could never have imagined!

“No matter what happens in life. be good to people”

— Taylor Swift, Singer-Songwriter

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Create an Eye-Catching Animated Ad in 5 Easy Steps

It is easy to create memorable ads for your business. 

All you need is the right tools.

1. Choose a quote you like at Brainy Quote 

2. Pick out good background video footage from Pond5 .

3. Use a template at Animoto to plug in your quote and video. 

4. Select music.

5. Preview your work, render, download, share!

And here’s the final product:

Do it yourself, or have Joy Lab create amazing stock footage ads for you!

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Five Reasons to Use Video for your Business

Why is video important for your business?  Video reveals personality.  Simple videos that show who you are can be an effective way to put a face and personality to your business name.

1. Every business should have video on it's website.  We do business with who we know, like, and trust.  Let your potential customer get to know you!

2.  Stand out with a Facebook Cover Video on your business Facebook page.  At the top of every business Facebook page is a square photo, usually used for a company logo, and a wide rectangle cover photo.  Put a cover video there!  Your page will be more engaging and create a richer experience for your audience by spotlighting your business in one of the most prominent spaces, your page cover. Video gets your brand remembered.

3.  Be shareable with a Facebook/Instagram ad.  88% of short videos (less than 1 minute) viewed on mobile devices are watched through to the end. The end is where you call to action is. People share video they find interesting or valuable or (especially) cute or funny.

4.  Take advantage of time-lapse, especially if your business creates or fixes something.  Search engines love video.  Time-lapse is eye-catching, especially if it enhances a more significant story.

5.  Promote your event with video.  Video conveys huge amounts of information in a short time through show and tell, and is more engaging to the senses.

Tonya Lehman, owner of Joy Lab, can help you with all your business and personal video needs!

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Do It Yourself with Animoto

Do what yourself?

Create professional video for your business advertising needs!

Animoto is a subscription site that has hundreds of templates for use in communicating through video.  

Follow along while I create a 60 second video for a leadership class outing.

As a first step, decide, "What kind of video do you want to create? Slideshow Video or Marketing Video?"

I chose Marketing.

Choose from a pre-built storyboard.  Animoto has the storyboard templates in categories.  The broad categories are "Popular", "Attract an audience", "Share a product or service", and "Tell your company's story."  I chose the last one.

Under "Tell your company's story" there are 10 more subcategories:  School Newsletter, Behind the Scenes, About Us, Product Story, Milestone Celebration, Non-profit Campaign, Social Fundraising Ad, Business Story, Company Overview, Agent Testimonial.

I chose School Newsletter.  Watch the sample storyboard:

The School Newsletter is a 20 second storyboard with three photos, two videos, text, royalty-free music, and no voiceover.

1. Opening photo with text

2. Video with text

3. Split screen photo with text

4. Photo with text

5. Text

6. Video with text

7. Closing text

It's pretty good, isn't it?!

My goal is to create a 60 second video about a field trip day for my chamber of commerce leadership class.  We visited four businesses in our town.  The video will be shown in class on a large TV.

Let's start modifying.  I'll work my way down the menu on the left side column.

Media

I upload 13 photos and 4 videos.  That is too many photos for a 60 second video about 4 businesses, but it is easier to play with my options with every good picture already uploaded.

Ratio

I can easily make a 1:1 Facebook video, and I may do that later.  But since the video will be shown in class on a large TV, I will choose 16:9.

Design

Here I can change the text box color and background color and font.  The chamber of commerce has set colors for their marketing.  I'm not doing this to market for them, but since it is a chamber activity, I will change the colors to their colors.  Easy!

Filters

Black & white, cool, warm, denim, fade, darken.  I don't use any of these filters.

Music

Animoto has over 2000 royalty-free songs for you to choose from.  I will do this at the end.

Add a Block

It is easy to add a new block for my content:  photo, text, video, collage, or logo.

It takes me about 1 hour to play around and get my video the way I want it.  The music that Animoto automatically put in place is fine, so I keep it.

Here is my final video!  Questions?  Ask me!

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Who's on First?

At a recent weekly business meeting the speaker was explaining the confusing alphabet soup that is Medicare plans.  

Although I am not close to qualifying for Medicare, I listened politely, because that's what we do.

After one particularly convoluted explanation, someone in the audience muttered, "Who's on first?"

“Who’s on first?”

We all laughed.

Then I started wondering.... Does the younger generation get that reference?

It comes from a 1930 comedy routine in which Bud Abbott tells Lou Costello about a baseball team.  You have to watch it to understand.

"I don't know... Third Base!"

Funny!

• The point is that Medicare is as confusing as Abbott and Costello.

• The point is, do younger people know about this old black and white comedy routine?

Here's an updated version from 2012.

"Who? What? Yes?"

Funny!

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Square Video Wins at Facebook

What shape of video should I use to advertise on Facebook?

The wise people at Buffer Social did research, and found that square videos outperformed landscape videos in engagement, views, and reach. 

For a video girl, this is hard to take.  I want widescreen!

Fortunately, widescreen is still good on YouTube.

For best engagement, here is what Facebook likes - square video.

But please, don't shoot video on your cell phone in portrait, like this!  It looks terrible, and cuts the action off!  It's bad enough the camera runs all over the place to begin with.  Let the audience see what is going on!

Interesting, isn’t it? So you should subscribe!

How Often Should I Post Video on my Facebook Business Page?

How often should I post new video on my Facebook business page?

The bloggers say it depends.  On audience preferences, audience demographics, the size of your following, the type of your business.

The bloggers say to look at your data, look at your demographic.

The bloggers say to look at a business similar to yours, and to copy them. 

Let’s try that.

The directions by Sophia Dagnon in agora pulse are for your own business.  But let’s extend that to a type of business for which you don’t have Facebook Insights access.

Take Payment Processing.  Put Payment Processing Business in the search bar, and click Pages.  You want the business page to see how often they post video.  I’m comparing local companies, so I click that Category to the left.

How are they listed?  Who is listed first?  We won’t delve into the ever-changing mysteries of Facebook ranking here.

We have a range of number of likes, and star rating.  For brevity, let’s look at the first four on the ranking.

Total-Apps Advanced Payment Processing Solutions hasn’t posted anything for over 30 days for their 2K followers. Five videos, the most recent posted over 1 year ago.

Processing Point Inc hasn’t posted anything for over 3 months for their 311 followers.  No videos.

Elite Payment Processing hasn’t posted anything for over 2 months for their 1.5K followers.  No videos.

Central Payment Processing hasn’t posted anything for over 2 months for their 74 followers.  No videos.

Limited Conclusion:  Payment Processing businesses are not using video at all.

If you are a payment processor, should you invest in video for Facebook?

Yes.  The people who like these business pages are people who use their services already.  You want to drive new business to your company.  Invest in quality video, pay to boost it, and you will get people talking and sharing your video. 

We are still left with our first question:  How often should I post new video on my Facebook page?

Once a week.  We will have to do what the bloggers say, and rely on data.  Post one video, and see how many views and shares and likes and subscribers you get.  Next week, post another video and check results.  Third week, repost the first video.  By the fourth week, you will know if once a week works, or if it is annoying.  By the fourth week, you will know if any sales have happened, and can adjust accordingly.

Is that too much?  Is that overwhelming?  Then just post one quality video, and pay to boost the same video once a month.

Sometimes we just have to get our toes wet before jumping in.  Do one video.  Put one video out.  Don't worry if it isn't perfect.  If we wait for everything to be perfect, nothing will ever get done. 

“If we wait for everything to be perfect, nothing will ever get done.”

— Tonya Lehman, @JoyLabLearning

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